The Ojai Film Society has added two more summer fundraising films. August 22: City Island, a family drama with Andy Garcia and August 29: Solitary Man with an excellent performance by Michael Douglas. The films are on Sundays at 4:30 pm at the Ojai Playhouse. All tickets are $10. For more informance call 805-646-8946 or visit our website at www.ojaifilmsociety.org.
Sunday, August 22
City Island 2009 USA 1 hr., 44 min. Rated PG-13
City Island introduces us to the Rizzos, a boisterous family of four living in the blue-collar seaside spit of Bronx real estate called City Island. The Rizzos don’t talk much to each other but when they do the neighbors hear every word. Vince (Andy Garcia) is a prison guard who dreams of being an actor. Marlon Brando is his god. He attends acting classes in Manhattan, but fearing his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) won’t understand he pretends to be at a weekly poker game. Joyce is convinced Vince is seeing a mistress. Their children also lead secret lives.
Two life-changing experiences happen to Vince that act as catalysts for upheaval in the long-established patterns of his life. City Island written and directed by Raymond De Felitta, has a serious side but is essentially a human comedy, at times a gentle farce, as discoveries and revelations drop like explosives. Garcia and Margulies, who worked well together in Man from Elysian Fields (2001), have a sure feel for comedy here.
“Andy Garcia demonstrates real comic chops in this charming comedy of family dysfunction.”—Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Sunday, August 29
Solitary Man 2009 USA 1 hr., 30 min. Rated R
Solitary Man is a sharp, small-scale comedy of male misbehavior that turns out to be one of this year’s pleasant cinematic surprises. Not that Michael Douglas’s character Ben Kalmen is an especially pleasant fellow. He looks like a winner until you look closer. Formerly the owner of several successful automobile dealerships, the good-looking, charming and persuasive Ben billed himself as the “Tristate Area’s Honest Car Salesman” in advertisements.
Then came his fall. He cheated in his bookkeeping, cheated on his good wife and suffered a bitter divorce. Liar, cynic, compulsive womanizer and all-around jerk, Ben makes no apologies for his behavior. Ben isn’t solitary by choice but by default. The sheer number of people he tries to deal could make the movie’s title seem off base, but we soon realize he is essentially alone. It may not be easy to like this solitary man. It may be impossible. But by the end you understand him and Douglas never hits a false note.
“This is a smart, effective film…a serious comedy, perceptive, nuanced, with every supporting performance well-calibrated to demonstrate to Ben that he can run but he can no longer hide.”—Roger Ebert
